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This section was my workspace for philosophy essays between July 2006 and April 2008.
I call this "Prehistoric Kilroy" because it gave me practice for more
disciplined essays in Kilroy Cafe.Also see my philophical blog and Twitter feed.

Issue #78, 1/30/2007

Get Off the Bus, Gus!

By Glenn CampbellFamily Court Philosopher

[Subject to active editing
for the next day or two.]

To the surprise of many, Las Vegas has a pretty good local
bus system. Routes follow all the major cross streets, and
the buses are frequent and reasonably on time. For one low
fare (just twice the one-way fare), you can travel the bus
system all day long, taking as many trips as you want. Once
you are on the bus, you don't have to worry about traffic.
You can read a book or daydream because someone else is
doing the driving for you.

Another advantage of the bus is spiritual: If you are in
the right frame of mind while taking it, you can sometimes
achieve Nirvana.

This happened to me while taking the bus last night. In a
moment of enlightenment somewhere along Tropicana Avenue, it
occurred to me that buses explain everything! Buses are one
of the main things we are all struggling with on the great
highway of life. We study the schedules and try to scrape
together the fare, when in fact the whole bus system is
something of an illusion. Buses serve a role when we need
them, but as soon as the opportunity arises, the most
important thing we can do is get off the bus. It is better
to find another way.

Have I lost you? Let me step back and explain to you how
buses work, and then maybe you'll understand.

Buses operate along a fixed route and are designed for the
needs of many. They usually beat walking, but they are not
as convenient as driving. On the bus, you can usually get
where you want to go, but you have to adapt to the published
route and schedule, and you have to be patient. Travelling
by bus can take between two and five times longer than driving a car
because there are so many stops along the way. These stops
are important to the other bus riders but not to you.

Driving a car is usually preferable, because you can travel
wherever you want, whenever you want, skipping intermediate
stops and transfers. In a car, you can also change your
itinerary in mid-journey. If you see something interesting
along the way, you can pull over immediately and take a
look, whereas the bus doesn't usually give you that option.

The trouble with cars is that they are complicated machines,
expensive to own, run, insure and maintain. Driving a car
also exposes you to a lot of risks that you don't have on the
bus, not the least of which is losing your way.

In a broader sense, "buses" are patterns of behavior that
have been established by others, while "cars" are the routes
we plan for ourselves to serve are own unique needs.

For example, education is a bus. Once we sign up for a class,
our learning path is programmed for us and the driving is
taken out of our hands and placed in the control of a
"teacher." We don't have to think about where we are going;
we just have to do the assignments. This is not the most
efficient way to learn, because you are proceeding at the
pace of the group and have to suffer through many
unnecessary stops, but at least it gets you there.

A career in any established profession is a bus. Once we
decide to become a doctor, lawyer or electrician, then our
life is pretty much mapped out for us. Marriage is also a
bus. Once you sign on to the concept, then there are a
whole set of established patterns you are supposed to
follow. Once you step onto a bus like that, it can be very
hard to step off.

Every day, we are taking a variety of little buses that we
hardly notice. If today is someone's birthday, the bus
tells us what to do: obtain a cake, put some candles on it,
then sing "Happy Birthday" to them. A huge portion of our
daily lives is pre-programmed this way. Whenever a problem
arises, there is an acceptable ritual to deal with it. It's
not necessarily the best way to deal with the problem; it's
just the way things are supposed to be done.

Our upbringing supplies us with some of these pre-packaged
routines, and advertizing and media give us even more. If
you discover you have dandruff; what do you do? You can get on the
Head & Shoulders bus or the Selsun Blue bus. We don't think
about how these buses work or whether dandruff is bad to
begin with. Whenever we encounter something we don't know how to
deal with, we join some club or established program that claims
to offer a solution.

Religion is a bus, Big Time. If you are confused about the
meaning of life, there are plenty of faiths that claim to
give you the answers. If you sign up for the Catholic
Church, the Mormon Church, the Scientologists or the
Wiccans, you may not become any less confused in the long
run, but at least they give you something to do. There are
ceremonies to follow and words to speak, and it feels like
you have boarded a bus that is going somewhere. Religion
can be very reassuring because it lets you turn over the
driving to someone else. You just have to sit back in your
seat and put your faith in Jesus.

At least everyone says that Jesus is driving the bus, but
are you really sure? Have you looked up in front to see?
Isn't it really a committee of people who are driving the
bus, claiming to represent Jesus? Isn't the bus just going
in whatever direction that serves the needs of those people?

The trouble with buses is that you have to decide on your
destination before you start your journey, then you have to
put your fate in the hands of the driver. When you sign up for law
school, you are deciding that 20 years from now you are
going to be happy being a lawyer. It may or may not turn out
to be true, but how do you know? How can anyone make a
decision like this so far in advance and with so little
information?

When you take the bus, you are trusting in the wisdom of
others to decide what is best for you. Every bus ride
requires putting yourself in someone else's
hands—sometimes a specific person, like a teacher, or
sometimes a faceless system. The goals of the people who
run the bus system aren't necessarily the same as your
goals, so you always have to be wary of every bus you board.

We all need buses when we are young. We need simplified
patterns and rituals to help us get us started in the
complexities of life. Every child, for example, needs some
form of ritualized schooling. This is a quasi-religious
system at first: You do things because Authority tells you
to. At the beginning you don't have to understand why; you
just have to have faith.

As you grow up, however, you need to be getting off the bus
whenever possible. This is scary sometimes, because when
you don't have a bus, you have to plan your own route, and
there are lots of ways you can screw up. The benefit,
however, is that by designing your own path, you can serve
your own needs far more efficiently than any pre-packaged
itinerary.

When I took my first trip across the United States at the
age of 19, even the bus was too confusing for me. Buses
cross the country in so many different directions that it
is hard to know which way to go. (It can be especially
confusing when you are still lost in the fog of
adolescence—as 19 is!) Instead I took the train. I
bought a two-week railpass and essentially camped on the
train for that time. Trains in the United States are very
limited (even circa 1979). There are only a few routes, and
I remember at the time that I found this to be a relief.
The steel tracks, to me, were solid and reassuring, not
restrictive. I didn't feel imprisoned, because
everything I saw was new to me and I needed a solid
structure to help me process it.

That's not how I feel today, because my needs have changed.
I have constructed my own rules about where to go, and I
don't need the rails to guide me. At the same time, I want
to be free to make stops and diversions along the way. The
thought of being restricted to the rail line has gone from
liberating to unnecessarily burdensome.

Likewise, when I took my first vacation in Europe ten years
later, I used a railpass, even though I had the means to
rent a car. I hopped from hostel to hostel along well-worn
and well-documented trails, and this was comforting to me,
because I was trying to make sense of a whole new continent.
The languages, cultures and travel options seemed
overwhelming, so I wanted a solid structure to guide me. (I
was also not very far from adolescence, even at 29.)

Today, I would be unlikely to take the train in Europe, no
matter how efficient their system may be.

Looks nice from here, but what are the passengers
seeing?

Now that I have already seen the highlights and know what to
expect, why would I restrict myself to a few limited paths? On
travel shows on TV, you see dramatic aerial shots of a trains
passing through canyons and dramatic countryside, but you
don't get this view if you are inside the train. In a
train, you are trapped at ground level, whizzing by the
sights at high speed, usually able to look out in only one
direction. Frankly, it's not much better than staying at home and
watching a travel video.

Today, I would just buy a plane ticket, rent a car at the
airport, then wing it from there. You can see much more in
a car, and the journey is precisely tailored to your own
interests, needs and whims. If you pass an interesting
castle, you can stop and check it out, whereas the train
might just speed by.

Not that I am recommending this to everyone. If you are
going to "wing it" in anything, some prior experience and
local knowledge is necessary, but once you have the skills of
independence, you want to use them as soon as you can.

I have never comprehended how adults can take "cruises" and
"tours." That is where someone sets up your itinerary for
you, decides what is "fun" according to their own commercial
interests and then arranges it all for you. Many of those tours
end up right here in Las Vegas. If the casinos have their
way, you will be checked into their hotel for a week and
will do whatever activities they have created for you. The
Las Vegas economy is built on the huge number of suckers who
fall for this proposal.

Why would anyone stay at Paris, Las Vegas, when
for about the same money and time they could go to Paris,
France? Because they're morons, that's why! They don't have
the courage or creativity to step off the bus and design
their own path.

Of course, Paris, the city, is big and confusing, with many
more risks and responsibilities than Paris, Las Vegas. They
speak that funny language there, and your interactions with the
locals are bound to be awkward. It's not as sanitary as
Paris, the casino—which presents all the major symbols of the
city with none of the grime and confusion.

Going it alone is always risky, and frankly many people aren't
set up for it. Owning ones own business, for example, is a
blessing to some and a disaster to others. Some people
probably belong on cruises and in casinos for their own
protection—but they are not you and I.

As much as you need structure at the
beginning of any new experience, this is a temporary
solution only, just to get you started—like training
wheels on your bicycle. The most efficient mode of living
is to seek your own structure whenever the world allows you
to. You wouldn't take the bus when you have the option to
drive, and you wouldn't sign on to somebody else's plan when
you can reasonably make your own.

As you examine your current life, how much of what you do is
necessary, and how much is a crude and plodding bus route
designed by someone else? Are you planning your own route,
or are you a prisoner of the bus system?

Escaping the structure of others may not be easy, but it is
an essential step in your maturation.

—G.C.

Links

Reader Comments

“This essay made me think of the value of structure for children - how reliability and consistency provide the necessary safety and comfort that children need before they can learn to explore on their own. I agree with you that with maturity comes the ability to chart one's own path. I think too, that an essential element to self-charting is desire for continued growth. Many people do quite well with the bus and many do well driving the same path every day. It is the curious and growing individual who even considers "pulling over @ a whim". Many mature responsible adults get to work each day by the same route and upon arrival wonder how they did so without noticing a thing! What wonderful possibilities the fork in the road present to an enlightened and curious mind.”
—psmflowerlady 1/30/07 (rating=3)